October 31, 2005

Here's an old article by Uri Avnery on the "new" anti-semitism. Avnery's not my fave but he can hit the spot sometimes. I'm just selecting some choice quotes here.

All over the world, Jews live in safety, and only in one place on the planet are they threatened by annihilation: Israel. Here the national parks are prepared for mass-graves, here (pathetic) measures against biological and chemical weapons are prepared. Many people are already planning to escape to the communities in the Diaspora. End of a myth.

And this

the State of Israel is causing the resurrection of anti-Semitism all over the world, threatening Jews everywhere.

Or what about this:

Sharon's propaganda agents are pouring oil on the flames. Accusing all critics of his policy of being anti-Semites, they brand large communities with this mark. Many good people, who feel no hatred at all towards the Jews, but who detest the persecution of the Palestinians, are now called anti-Semites. Thus the sting is taken out of this word, giving it something approaching respectability.

But it gets better:

In Europe, Jews already feel the pressure. But in the United States, they still feel supremely self-confident. In Europe, Jews have learned over the centuries that it is not wise to be too conspicuous and to display their wealth and influence. But in America, the very opposite is happening: the Jewish establishment is practically straining to prove that it controls the country.

Every few years, the Jewish lobby "eliminates" an American politician who does not support the Israeli government unconditionally. This is not done secretly, behind the scenes, but as a public "execution". Just now this was done to the black Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, a young, active, intelligent and very sympathetic woman. She has dared to criticize the Sharon government, support Palestinians and (worst of all) Israeli and Jewish peace groups. The Jewish establishment found a counter-candidate, a practically unknown black woman, injected huge sums into the campaign and defeated Cynthia.

And better still:

Now this is repeated in a big way. The pro-Israel lobby - which consists of Jews and extreme right-wing Christian fundamentalists - is pushing the American administration to start a war. This, too, openly, in full view of the American public. Dozens of articles in the important newspapers point this out as a plain political fact.

Time for a warning:

What will happen if the war ends in failure? If it has unexpected negative results and many young Americans die? If the American public turns against it, as happened during the Vietnam War? One can easily imagine a whispering campaign starting: "The Jews have pushed us into this," "The Jews support Israel more than they support America," and, finally, "The Jews control our country."

And now for some analysis:

There are people in Israel people who secretly wish for the victory of anti-Semitism everywhere. That would confirm another Zionist myth on which we were brought up: that Jews will not be able to live anywhere but in Israel, because anti-Semitism is bound to triumph everywhere.

And some advice for Jews throughout the world:

break out of the vicious circle. Disarm the anti-Semites. Break the habit of automatic identification with everything our governments do. Let your conscience speak out. Return to the traditional Jewish values of "That which is altogether just shalt thou follow!" (Deuteronomy 16,20) and "Seek peace and pursue it!" (Psalms 34, 14). Identify yourselves with the Other Israel, which is struggling to uphold these values at home.

And the good news?

All over the world, new Jewish groups that follow this way are multiplying. They break yet another myth: the duty of Jews everywhere to subordinate themselves to the edicts of our government. to the edicts of our government.

October 30, 2005

It's bothering me the way some zionists seem to be intent on publicising, rather than confronting, anti-semitism. I noticed it on Nick Cohen's site a week or so ago. Two zionists in particular, Linda Grant and David Hirsh were promoting anti-semitism like it was going out of fashion. I rather feel that anti-semitism in the west has gone out of fashion and zionists like this terrible two (from the ENGAGE site) need to revive it, which I believe is why they promote it.

It's often said that zionism was a response (reaction is probably a better word) to anti-semitism, or gentile repulsion against Jews but zionism soon lost its defensive character and developed a distinctly chauvinistic character. Actually I'm only making an assumption here. From its inception to now it looks pretty chauvinistic to me. But let's assume it's as we've been told: a reaction to anti-semitism. Then came the challenge of gentile attraction. The idea that gentiles might actually like Jews and vice versa. This is Finkelstein stuff. I'm nothing if not unoriginal. Now how does the ruling establishment of a free standing community, the Jews, based on matrilinear descent within so-called "host" communities maintain its established position in a free society where the "hosts" are attracted to the Jews and vice versa? Well they might develop an idea to take those people away from the "hosts" so that the Jews can become the "hosts" themselves. But if the Jews are attracted to the hosts (I'm fed up with quotation marks but take it as read, I do not see gentile Brits as mein hosts) why would they want to run off to another place? particularly with a view to colonial conquest, ethnic cleansing and the establishment of a state with an array of racist laws to guarantee the supremacy of the Jews over the natives? I mean that was bound to cause conflict. You could even call zionism itself, a suicide attack on the Middle East.

Well surely not all Jews are going to be panicked by the fact that most gentiles in the west think we're rather nice. I read recently that 89% of French people believe French Jews to be as French as anyone else from France. The zionists will say, "aha! French Jews are as French as anyone else and yet 11% of French people think otherwise.!" Actually a typical zionist would say "see how anti-semitic the French are, they spend 89% of their time obsessing about the Jews." Really, the other 11% may well have been deferring to the zionist idea that Jews worldwide are a nation in themselves. Or they are anti-semitic. Or perhaps they are both. Perhaps they feel that Jews cannot be French but they can have Palestine, or most of it, all to themselves.

This zionist relationship with anti-semitism has always been mutually beneficial. Tnat is of benefit to the zionist cause and to the anti-semitic cause; not, of course to the Jews. The progroms in Eastern Europe and the rise of fascism in western Europe caused a flow of Jews into Palestine. Organisationally, the zionist movement got a boost from the Tsarist authorities' support for zionism to thwart Jewish involvement in revolutionary or reformist movements in Russia. The nomination of Zionists to represent the Jews of nazi Germany is well documented, but not, surprise surprise, well publicised. Israel Shahak alludes to Ben Gurion's beneficial dealings with France's anti-semitic generals who found common ground on the "Arab problem". The supply of arms to the Galtieri regime by Israel too is well known, being exposed by Jacobo Timerman, a prominent Jewish editor in Argentina who fled for Israel, denouncing, though a zionist himself, the Jewish zionist leadership in Argentina as a judenrat. for covering up the fact that a disproportionately high number of Jews were "disappearing" during the "dirty war" against the left. Said Timerman, after his escape:

I saw with my own eyes how Argentinian jailers tortured Jews in prison while the Israeli government requested the Jewish community there to remain silent.

When a few of people had gone to Nick Cohen's site to dispute his ridiculous assertion that "all anti-semites are anti-zionists", David Hirsh, unable to refute our own assertion of nazi-zionist collaboration, denounced our reliance on historical facts and sources thus:

So all that past collaboration of zionists with anti-semitism is just a footnote now because a zionist academic said so. But wait, there are contemporary anti-semites who support Israel and surely David Hirsh must have known it when he wrote what he did. For all his talk of what goes on in the contemporary world around us, the various anti-semitic neo-nazi and holocaust denier groups and individuals are looked on by most people as a bunch of flat-earthers and wackos. The fascist groups with parliamentary seats in Europe tend to be pro-Israel and anti-Muslim. But the main anti-semitic groupings with high levels of support and the collective ear of the world's most powerful forces are the Christian right in America. I mentioned this on the Cohen site in response to David Hirsh's "contemporary" comment. Needless to say he didn't get back to me on it.

So here we have two zionists, significantly claiming to be left zionists, one of whom, David Hirsh, explicitly states that anti-zionism is anti-semitism, the other, Linda Grant, comes close to it whilst denying actually saying it.

Once again, for the record, I have never stated that anti-Zionism is in and of itself anti-semitic. I have stated that one needs to examine the motives of the anti-Zionist in each instance, and consider carefully, the consequences of their arguments.

"In each instance" we have to consider the consequences of anti-zionist arguments. That would of course take for ever. And I suppose that's the point. But that's not all we have to do. We have to publicise "each instance" of anti-semitism that masquerades as anti-zionism no matter how obscure and unpopular and then we have to obscure every instance of Christian zionist anti-semitism no matter how prominent or powerful. After all, surely these Christian rightists hate Muslims more than they hate Jews. Let's just see (in some cases revisit) some statements from the most prominent of Israel's Christian friends in America.

First up the Reverend Bailey Smith, a good friend of Israel from the Bailey Smith Ministries:

I don't know why God chose the Jew. They have such funny noses.

or this

It's interesting at great political rallies how you have a Protestant to pray, a Catholic to pray, and then you have a Jew to pray. With all due respect to those dear people, my friends, God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew. For how in the world can God hear the prayer of a man who says that Jesus Christ is not the true Messiah? That is blasphemy.

Prime Minister Menachem Begin, having previously lost seven straight national elections, had few illusions about the efficacy of Jewish prayer. He did, however, have a keen appreciation for Christians like Smith, who believed that the Bible conferred title to the land of Israel on the Jews. Smith enjoyed being appreciated, and he returned home loudly proclaiming Genesis 12:3: God will bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse Israel.

How about Jerry Falwell? Stereotypes are us, well stereotypes are him anyway:

"A few of you don't like the Jews and I know why," said the Rev. Jerry Falwell. "He [sic] can make more money accidently than you can make on purpose."

And here's one of his cohorts from New York, The Rev. Dan C. Fore:

I love the Jewish people deeply. God has given them talents He has not given others. They are His chosen people. Jews have a God-given ability to make money...They control the media, they control this city.

"It is my belief that the Bible Belt in America is Israel’s only safety belt right now," says Rev. Jerry Falwell, one of the leaders of the Christian Right. That’s the bulk of Evangelical Christians; Falwell claims to speak for all of them.

"There are 70 million of us," he says. "And if there’s one thing that brings us together quickly it’s whenever we begin to detect our government becoming a little anti-Israel."

And Pat Robertson?

In the end times, Robertson believes, Jews will be brought in as "offerings to the Lord." He predicts mass conversions of Jews to Christianity, and toward this end, Robertson built a Christian radio station in Lebanon to beam the Gospel into the Jewish state, which Fundamentalists believe will eventually be inherited by Christians. For the present, Jews occupy the land as caretakers.

It's curious but these guardians of Jewish well-being, David Hirsh and Linda Grant, don't see the implied, indeed expressed, threat here. They say they see it in obscure shunned groups and in principled anti-racists, but not in prominent power-brokers like America's Christian right. Their anti-semitism is almost as famous as their zionism. In fact it is their zionism that causes zionists in the media to largely cover for their anti-semitism. But all Jews know of the statements of this triumverate of Smith, Falwell and Robertson and yet no zionists seem to be troubled by it. It's as if they see past collaborations with anti-semites, sorry but here they are again: the Tsar, the nazis, Galtieri, etc, cost many many Jewish lives but still they persist in the belief that the enemies of the Jews are the friends of zionism. And of course they are right. This is why they publicise obscure and isolated anti-semites as Linda Grant did on Nick Cohen's site. But in so doing they merely show that zionism is an enemy, not just of the Palestinians but of Jews as well. Equally they know that, in spite of their claim that there are anti-semites on every street corner, anti-semitism is actually quite unpopular which is why they smear anti-zionists as being anti-semitic or why, in Linda Grant's case, she has to check the political correctness of each and every anti-zionist and anti-zionist argument but she doesn't feel any such need to screen zionists for racism or anti-semitism.

The fact is that historically and currently anti-semitism is a vital weapon, the vital ideological weapon, in the armoury of zionism. It causes Jews to become cannon fodder and apologists for the racist war criminals of the State of Israel, it's useful as a stick with which to beat anti-zionists and it causes those who disparage and despise the Jewish people to support the idea of a colonial settler state with legislation to copperfasten a Jewish majority (80:20), until the "end-time" and that's when the plight of the Palestinians could become the plight of the whole world.

October 29, 2005

Dr Nur Masalha of the University of Surrey weighs into the discussion about the Iranian Presidents verbal aggression towards the zionist entity in today's Guardian.

The appalling comments on Israel made by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Israel should be wiped off map, October 27) are both empty rhetoric and highly damaging to the Palestinian cause. I believe we (Palestinian Muslims and Christians) should always make a clear distinction between our political struggle against institutionalised racism and ethnic cleaning in Palestine-Israel and the fact that we and the Israelis would, ultimately, have to live together as equal citizens under some form of secular democracy - and not wipe each other out.

Muslim fundamentalists (Ahmadinejad included) have miserably failed to understand the reality in historic Palestine: in the process of brutal colonisation of the country, a Hebrew-speaking "nation" has emerged, with its own distinct language, culture and flourishing literature. There are 5-6 million Hebrew-speaking Israelis and no one has the right to talk about wiping them out. Acknowledging the current bi-national reality is something completely different from legitimising the colonial process by which this reality has come about. The fact that the Israelis are trying quietly, but systematically (although not always successfully), on the ground to do to Palestinians in the West Bank what Ahmadinejad seems to suggest should be done to Israel should only encourage us to seek an alternative vision, away from political Zionism and Islamic fundamentalism.Dr Nur MasalhaUniversity of Surrey

What I like about this is the fact that it is free of the absurd and manifest hypocrisy of most governmental statements and of the Guardian's own editorial on this non-issue.

I think it ill-behoves anyone to say who is a "true Jew" but Jewish member of the Iranian parliament, Morris Motamed, as reported by the Iranian Islamic Republic News Agency, thinks he knows:

MP for Jewish community Morris Motamed said Friday that all the true Jews and followers of the divine religion as well as those believing in Moses (AS) hate usurper Israel due to the barbaric behavior of the Zionist regime.

The unequal war and clashes between Israelis, equipped with the most advanced weapons, and Palestinians, with stones in their hands, should be taken as the root cause of the public resentment, Motamed told IRNA on the sidelines of the World Quds (Jerusalem) Day rallies.

He reiterated, "The late Imam's slogan that Israel should be wiped off the world map" reflects the brave resistance of Imam as the founder of the Islamic Republic and said that all nations should do their utmost to materialize Imam's statement."True Jews, along with Muslim people, follow the path for campaign against Zionists and the Israeli crimes, he noted.

The suppressed people of Palestine should feel that all the followers of divine religions support them, he added.

Thousands have reportedly taken part in the rallies on the World Quds Day, the last Friday of the holy fasting month of Ramadhan.

President Ahmadinejad, the EC Chairman Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and some senior officials took part in the rallies to express their support for Intifada of Palestine.

Incidentally, the same website carries a report of what the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, actually said regarding Israel being wiped from the map. One line stands out:

He added that a world without the US and Israel would be possible.

Why no outcry about the "threat" to America? Obviously, the threat is about as credible as the threat to Israel, ie, INcredible, but why is America (and it's European allies) more concerned for Israel than for America? I've used these profound words before regarding America and Iran: Funny old world.

October 27, 2005

There's almost worldwide apoplexy about a throwaway line by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that Israel should be "wiped off the map." Now I can't see anything terribly wrong here. There are many people who believe that Israel has no right to exist. Let's break it down, shall we? Israel exists on the basis of colonial settlement, ethnic cleansing and segregationist laws. The UN has ruled, in General Assembly Resolution 194, year on year since the zionist movement carried out its ethnic cleansing campaign against the Palestinians, that the Palestinians have the right to return to their homes and that Israel should allow this. Now if Israel was forced to comply with this humanitarian demand then there would be a non-Jewish majority. If that were the case, they might not want to call the state "Israel". They might prefer to call it Palestine. If that was to happen then cartographers will want to "wipe Israel from the map" and replace it with Palestine.

I heard on Channel 4 News that Ahmadinejad made a reference to the resistance of the Palestinians leading to this wiping Israel from the map but I have seen nothing to indicate that Iran intends to do anything to further what has been described as a mere "wish" of the President:

"Iran's policy toward Israel will remain unchanged. We do not want more confrontation with the West," a senior government official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks during the conference "The World without Zionism" in Tehran October 26, 2005. Ahmadinejad's call for Israel to be "wiped off the map" does not signal the start of a more aggressive stance toward Israel by Tehran, officials and analysts said on Thursday. (REUTERS/Isna)"What Ahmadinejad said is his wish, but it does not mean Iran will take practical steps to destroy Israel."

This is highly significant. Consider the fact that Israel exists because it wiped most Palestinians from Palestine and it wiped Palestine from the map. Look for this context in any of our own media on this. And yet what a President of a Muslim country has said is held to carry more weight than what Israel has actually done. Look at the BBC's coverage. Check out the Russian foreign minister:

"Those who insist on transferring the Iranian nuclear dossier to the UN Security Council have received an additional argument for doing so," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said during a trip to Jordan.

"What I saw on television was unacceptable," added the minister, whose country has been supplying civilian nuclear know-how to Iran, and he promised Moscow would bring its concern to Iran's attention.

This from a minister from the former Soviet Union. Surely cartographers have wiped the Soviet Union from the map. Was it a big deal? The best part of all this was the BBC's report of the war criminal Shimon Peres's statement:

Israeli Vice-Prime Minister Shimon Peres said the remark contravened the UN's charter and was "tantamount to a crime against humanity".

And this from the butcher of Qana.

The blanket coverage of this and the mobilisation of governments to condemn Iran is worrying though. Iran is being threatened by the US and pressured by the EU. Ahmadinejad certainly picked his time to be mouthing off empty rhetoric. But given that he simply restated a long held Iranian government conviction, why has this one liner got so much coverage?

The bad news is that the sickos at the Zionist Federation are seeing fit to hold a demonstration against the performance at the Hackney Empire.

Ok, first things first: here's the detail on the main event, but please hang in there for details of the most ghoulish demo imaginable.

The event itself is at the Hackney Empire on 1st November 2005. It is billed as follows:

A concert for justice and peace.In memory of all the lives lost during the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.Introduced by Harold Pinter.

World Premiere The Skies Are Weeping.Cantata for soprano, chamber choir and percussion ensemble, Op 75 by Philip Munger, in memoriam Rachel Corrie, peace activist in Gaza. Original US premiere cancelled after threats were received by principals involved.

UK Premiere The Singer of Wind and Rain – Five songs on Palestinian poems set by Gregory Youtz.Traditional Palestinian dance and music performed by the Dabka group Al-Hurriyya.

(Surplus funds go to the Israeli CommitteeAgainst House Demolitions and the GazaCommunity Mental Health Programme).

Ok now here's the event being organised by the Zionist Federation. First of all, have a look around their website for details of the fact that they are going to demonstrate against the commemoration of a peace activist who was murdered by the State of Israel. You will search in vain. They're sufficiently ashamed of their despicable behaviour to try to keep it out of the public domain but, as you will see, they've briefed the press and the police as to what they're up to. Here's the Zionist Federation email rallying their supporters to the "cause."

Dear all,

There is to be a lawful and peaceful protest outside the world premier of "The skies are weeping" a concert for Rachel Corrie, the American activist killed in Gaza. While we regret the senseless loss of life of the young idealist, her death has been manipulated as a symbol by anti-Israel protagonists.[This has the support of her family by the way - who are the zionists to complain? I object to their manipulation of the holocaust but I don't picket Holocaust Memorial Day; I boycott it]

The protest will be opposite the Hackney Empire on Tuesday 1st November. It is being done with the full co-operation of the Metropolitan Police. There will be a police presence on the night as well as stewards to assist. [assist with what?]

Our protest will highlight Israelis killed in suicide and terrorist attacks that should also be remembered; the focus is on the numerous Israeli "Rachels" killed in suicide attacks in Israel. [and the Palestinians who have been killed in far greater numbers? do they count?]

Please come, show your support and exercise your right to protest. The demonstration will be peaceful and level-headed. The concert does nothing to build bridges and encourage dialogue nor does it promote an understanding of the issues. [no, for that we need to ignore Israel's war crimes] We really need your support to make this work.

Banners, placards and flyers will be provided, don't bring any literature or banners that may be misconstrued as offensive, there will be press coverage and it is imperative we get it right.

We will meet at 5.45pm at Town Hall Square in Mare Street, next to the Hackney Empire; the play begins at 7.30pm.

Look forward to seeing you there.

Regards,

Jonny Paul

What breathtaking arrogance! They have a police and press escort for a demonstration against a woman who was killed by a state, whose right to exist is, at best, questionable, that they so uncritically support. And see how they command their supporters not to bring literature. What's all that about? Could it be they don't trust their supporters to be sufficiently tasteful about the way they spit on the grave of Rachel Corrie? If anyone needs more evidence of the sheer vindictiveness of the zionist movement, come to the cantata on 1/11/2005 and see for yourselves the uniquely despicable behaviour of the zionist movement. Of course, you don't have to go in, you can just watch the zionist ghouls being ghoulish.

UPDATE: A friend of mine has suggested that the reason for the Zionist Federation's threatened demo is to make the Hackney Empire feel threatened and cancel the production. This would mean that any hint of a counter-demo could actually play into the hands of the zionists. It is now being suggested that people should buy tickets in advance. They range in price from £10 to £17.50 and can be bought here.

Further UPDATE: the Brownshirts of Hitler's favourite zionist group,Betar, are now on the case.

October 24, 2005

The Guardian carries an article by Norma Percy the maker of Elusive Peace, the BBC documentary supposedly detailing the events of the last eight years in the fraught history of the Arab-Israeli peace process. This last episode contains the, now famous, when God met George moment.

Nabil Shaath says: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, "George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan." And I did, and then God would tell me, "George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq …" And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, "Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East." And by God I'm gonna do it.'"

Norma Percy is confident that this is a faithful report on what Bush said to the Palestinian leaders. Is it possible that Bush was simply trying to convince them that he was serious about a peace process whereby he has already declared his support for Sharon's, indeed, zionism's, Greater Israel? Remember these are the same Palestinians who placed all their faith in Oslo.

The JNF was established in April 1907 in England as an instrument of the World Zionist Organization (WZO) to acquire and colonize land. With the enactment of the Israeli JNF Law (1953), which states in clause 6 that it is permitted to set up an incorporated body in Israel for the continuation of the activities of the existing company that was founded and incorporated in Europe, JNF was registered as an Israeli company and the English company's assets were transferred to it. JNF is held by the state of Israel as a central tool of Judaization.

The spat has been going on for over five years, in the first instance because the UK based JNF feared that too close an association with the Israeli branch could jeopardise its charitable status.

A little known fact about the Jewish National Fund in the UK is that three of its honorary patrons are Tony Blair, Charles Kennedy and Michael Howard. I wonder how any of these could play the role of any kind of honest broker in the Middle East when they are card carrying associates of an organisation that has instigated and benefited from the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

The relationship (between Israel and the Christian right)is not an easy one. Bush-backing evangelists are among Ariel Sharon's best friends in a hostile world. The politics mesh easily but underpinning them is a belief among the fundamentalists that the revival of the Israeli state is a precursor to the Second Coming. And with that goes a desire to get Jews to recognise the First Coming and save themselves from eternal damnation. Israel passed laws against that kind of evangelising decades ago, but these days the Jerusalem Post, like the government, is less concerned with the hereafter than the here and now.

Zionist anti-semitism is nothing new of course. It goes back to the inception of the zionist movement. The founder of the movement, Theodor Herzl, was very clear that the enemies of the Jews were the very people who had the most interest in supporting zionism. Zionist collusion with anti-semitism has had tragic consequences for Jews but it has usually yielded benefits for zionism. First there was the collaboration with von Plehve in Tsarist Russia. The commissioner of the Protocols forgery and the instigator of pogroms from the late 19th century to the early 20th was an enthusiastic believer in zionism, a convert no less. Later, Jabotinsky would collaborate with Simon Perliura while the latter's men would slaughter as many as 125,000 Jews. A labour zionist, Abraham Revusky, even became a minister in Petliura's government, the Minister for Jewish Affairs. Later still, many believe the zionists kept a precarious nazi government in power in Germany by breaking an economic boycott and rescuing the regime from bankruptcy. And on to Hungary where 400,000 Jews who could have hidden or resisted were called to transportation points by the local zionist leadership. This zionist collaboration led to their deaths. And also to the death of the main collaborator, Rudolp Kastner. In the 1950s Ben Gurion worked well with anti-semitic French generals, supporting France in Algeria. In the 1970s, former nazi internee and Prime Minister of apartheid South Africa, John Vorster was the esteemed guest of Menahem Begin at Yad Vashem of all places. And in the 1980s we had the unedifying spectacle of Israel supplying weaponry to the Galtieri regime in Argentina even after the junta's exposure as a regime that "disappeared" thousands of people, over 12% of whom were Jews in spite of Jews having been less than 0.1% of the Argentine population.

"It's interesting at great political rallies," preached the Rev. Bailey Smith, "how you have a Protestant to pray, a Catholic to pray, and then you have a Jew to pray. With all due respect to those dear people, my friends, God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew. For how in the world can God hear the prayer of a man who says that Jesus Christ is not the true Messiah? That is blasphemy."

The Rev. Jerry Falwell sanctioned this viewpoint in his book, Listen, America! "The Jews are returning to their land of unbelief. They are spiritually blind and desperately in need of their Messiah and Savior. Yet they are God's people, and in the world today Bible-believing Christians are the best friends the nation Israel has."

Falwell correctly points out that he and other American fundamentalist Christians support the nation of Israel. It should be noted, however, that this support is for a piece of real estate, the land of Israel, and not necessarily for the Jewish people.

Pat Robertson, too, thinks of Jews as "spiritually deaf" and "spiritually blind." In the end times, Robertson believes, Jews will be brought in as "offerings to the Lord." He predicts mass conversions of Jews to Christianity, and toward this end, Robertson built a Christian radio station in Lebanon to beam the Gospel into the Jewish state, which Fundamentalists believe will eventually be inherited by Christians. For the present, Jews occupy the land as caretakers.

Well perhaps the zionists are right this time. Perhaps we will all be saved thanks to their collaborative efforts.

Juan Cole's highly respected and widely read Informed Comment blog has a link, together with a favourable comment, to a Lenin's Tomb post on opinion polls in Iraq.

The Lenin's Tomb Blog points out that recent opinion polling in Iraq shows that a majority of Iraqis reject the kind of loose federalism now enshrined in the Iraqi constitution! This is true of both Shiites and Sunnis.

I should have posted this a few days ago. Everyone familiar with Israel knew that the Gaza withdrawal was mostly a sham. It's true that there are religious fanatics who believe that no land controlled by Jews should ever be given up but most people were aware that the Gaza withdrawal was, as Sharon told the mass circulation Yedioth Ahronoth, a "punishment, and not a reward, for the Palestinians." Similarly, Sharon's most trusted adviser, Dov Weisglass, is on record as saying that

the significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process, and when you freeze that process,you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda.

This is old hat now of course. But as Chris McGreal in the Guardian points out, what we already knew would happen has started to happen. In fact it had already begun before the Gaza withdrawal.

As foreign leaders, including Tony Blair, praised Mr Sharon for his "courage" in pulling out of Gaza last month, Israel was accelerating construction of the West Bank barrier, expropriating more land in the West Bank than it was surrendering in Gaza, and building thousands of new homes in Jewish settlements.

No serious observer of Israel/Palestine can plausibly claim to be surprised at this development.

It is often said that Israel's Law of Return, allowing anyone with one Jewish grandparent automatic citizenship, is based on Nazi Germany's Nuremberg Laws segregating Jews from "aryans." This misses the point in a couple of crucial aspects. When the law was first passed in 1950 it was for any Jew. It wasn't until 1970 that the law was changed to allow for the one grandparent principle. I don't know the circumstances leading to the change but Israel seems to move the who-is-a-Jew goalposts every few years to satisfy its "demographic concerns." Now, let's have a look at what Wikipedia has to say on this:

The Law of Return does not actually assert citizenship based on Jewish identity, but rather attempts to provide sanctuary as a citizen in Israel to anyone who would be persecuted under the Nuremberg Laws. As the Nuremberg Laws did not use a halakhic definition in its definition of Who is a Jew, so too the Law of Return definition for citizenship eligibility is also non-halakhic. The Law of Return merely provides citizenship for anyone covered under the Nuremberg Laws, but does not cede Jewish status to those granted citizenship. Thus one can be Jewish and be excluded from Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return (e.g. Meyer Lansky or Brother Daniel) or not be Jewish and yet be granted citizenship (but not Jewish status).

This is both mealy mouthed and self-contradictory. See the case of Brother Daniel which is mentioned in the passage.

Oswald Rufeisen 1922-1998, also known as Brother Daniel was born to a Jewish family living in Poland, near Oświęcim. To escape Nazi persecution, he hid in a monastary for over a year; during this time he decided to convert to Catholicism. In 1945, after the war, Rufeisen returned to Poland, converted, studied for the priesthood, and became a Carmelite monk.

In the 1950s, Rufeisen applied for Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return, which provides Jews (and other) with Israeli citizenship through a streamlined naturalisation process (e.g. without the requirement of several years residency).

The Israeli government denied his request, on the grounds that he had converted to Christianity. Rufeisen appealed the case to the Supreme Court of Israel, and in 1962 the Court upheld the government's decision: any Jew converting to another religion would lose their preferential access to Israeli citizeship. (Rufeisen v Minister of the Interior, (1962) 16 PD 2428)

The case of Meyer Lansky is a straightforward case of Israel refusing citizenship to someone because of the welfare of the state. In this instance America was pursuing Lansky for racketeering and threatened to withhold Phantom jets from Israel unless Israel denied Lansky the right to remain. The case of Brother Daniel, formerly known as Oswald Rufeisen, is not so straightforward. Regardless of his conversion to Christianity, Brother Daniel would clearly have fallen foul of the Nuremberg Laws. Far from being a bulwark against Nuremberg style laws, the Law of Return, taken together with the Absentee Property Law, replicates them to an extent, except of course, the Nuremberg Laws were based on the pseudo-science of "race" and the Law of Return, together with the Absentee Property Law combines religious background with ethnicity. It is no less racist for the absence of "biological determinism" from its intention and application.

October 18, 2005

Actually to speak of laws of return in the plural is a bit of a misnomer because I think Israel is the only country that actually has a law called the Law of Return. Also, Israel's Law of Return is a central theme for its citizenship rules whereas citizenship of most countries revolves around being born there or born to someone who was born there or born to someone who was born to someone who was born there. The classic case of a country having a citizenship law based on having one grandparent from that country is Ireland. This is not called the Law of Return, it is called the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act. It's been subjected to a potentially profound change since the beginning of this year. Now, children born in Ireland are not necessarily entitled to citizenship if they have no claim based on parentage or grandparentage. So, whereas previously if a tourist in Ireland gave birth while they were there, that child could become an Irish citizen automatically. Now that is not the case. This law, of course, is not aimed at tourists but at asylum seekers. It's a cruel law in that it could leave some children stateless and therefore in a legal limbo situation. If we take racism to be prejudice on the basis of colour, creed or origin - together with the power to enforce that prejudice, ie discriminate - then it is clearly a racist law.

Now let's look at Israel's citizenship law here, though the text of the law itself is here at the Jewish Virtual Library. The idea of the law is to allow all Jews to live in Israel. It has been through modifications and the way the law now stands is that anyone who has a Jewish grandparent can automatically become a citizen of the state of Israel. The more devious of zionist apologists use this grandparent aspect to compare Israel's Law of Return to Ireland's nationality law. They actually contrast, in fact they are diametric opposites. You see Israel has another law relating to citizenship: the Absentee Property Law (1950). This could keep the zionist apologist in sophistry for hours, even days, at a time. The effect of this law is to deny the Palestinians the right of return to their homes or indeed to their homeland. It refers to property only. The humanity of the Palestinians is secondary here. It was their land that the zionists wanted, not their labour or any other aspect of their basic humanity. I couldn't see anything in the law to say that it was directed against Arabs but then it doesn't need to do that. The law states that people must have lived in Israel, indeed in their homes, during the period 27/11/1947 - when the first planned round of ethnic cleansing began - to 19/5/1948 in order to be citizens of the state. Taking the Law of Return together with the Absentee Property Law, the people with an automatic right to Israeli citizenship are people who managed to remain in the state during the ethnic cleansing of the Arab population from 1947 to 1949 and Jews from anywhere, together with their descendants, yay even unto the third generation. Let's take it slowly, if you were in the state from shortly before its independence was declared to shortly after then you can have citizenship. The only other people automatically entitled to citizenship are people with one Jewish grandparent. It so happens that the majority of Palestinian Arabs were purged from Palestine during the crucial period. They are denied citizenship in Israel, as are their children and their children's children. This is the complete opposite of the legal position in Ireland.

A contributor to Nick Cohen's blog offered the following comment just recently:

Ireland has a Law of Return. Britain has a Law of Return. Germany has a Law of Return.

I expect other countries do, too.

This is lazy blogging by me I know. This oft repeated lie by zionists is probably all over the net but this was the last time I saw it. Frankly I don't know the UK or Germany's citizenship laws but I am fairly certain that Britain doesn't deny citizenship to natives who happened to be out of the country when Britain was engaged in ethnic cleansing. And if Germany tried that sort of thing again the outcry would be deafening. My children are Irish passport holders in spite of me not being Irish and none of the children were born in Ireland. But they have a mother from Ireland. This "from Ireland" bit is the decisive thing. This is because under international law everyone is entitled to a homeland. That is everyone is entitled to live in the country they are from or their country of origin. This is where the grandparent bit comes in. This is why Ireland's law against some children who have been born there is so despicable even without being tested in the courts. But look at Israel. To date most people who have a grandparent from Israel (ie Palestinians) are banned from Israel. All people who have a grandparent from Ireland are welcome in Ireland.

Now when the zionists realise that they can't get away with their lies about this they invoke the holocaust to say why they need a state with a Jewish majority that has to ethnically cleanse natives and enact laws to maintain a "demographic balance" of colonisers over natives. Again have a quick scroll down Nick Cohen's site to see this. For the holocaust wary zionist, the Law of Return is of paramount importance. This, for example, is Greville Janner's take on it:

During the Holocaust millions of Jews died because no country in the world was prepared to give them a refuge and a home (Ian Buruma, G2, March 19).

The right of return is a key foundation of the state of Israel. There could be no question of any Israeli government of any political persuasion reducing that commitment in any way - least of all by giving it up.Lord Janner of BraunstoneHouse of Lords

Actually this letter is more hypocritical than I thought. He refers to the Law of Return as the "right of return." The "Law of Return" is simply the name of the law that froms the main pillar of Israel's segregationist structure. See more on this here. Ok here's a quick quote:

Non-Jewish citizens of Israel do not have the right to equality before the law. This discrimination is expressed in many Israeli laws in which, presumably in order to avoid embarrassment, the terms 'Jewish' and 'non-Jewish' are usually not explicitly stated, as they are in the crucial Law of Return. According to that law only persons officially recognised as 'Jewish' have an automatic right of entry to Israel and of settling in it. They automatically receive an 'immigration certificate' which provides them on arrival with 'citizenship by virtue of having returned to the Jewish homeland', and with the right to many financial benefits, which vary somewhat according to the country from which they emigrated. The Jews who emigrate from the states of the former UUSR receive 'an absorption grant' of more than $20,000 per family. All Jews immigrating to Israel according to this law immediately acquire the right to vote in elections and to be elected to the Knesset -- even if they do not speak a word of Hebrew.

So wrote Israel Shahak, describing the effect of the Law of Return on the gentile citizens of Israel. The "right of return" is a principle of international law, in the Palestinian case affirmed in UN General Assembly resolution 194 1948 and reaffirmed every year since. The right of return is the basic human right of all and the specific right of the Palestinians with regard to the land from which they were ethnically cleansed.

So, can anyone point to an equivalent law in Ireland, the UK or Germany? The fact is, Israel's Law of Return is the law that makes Israel unique, not for being a state with racists, though with official sanction Israeli racists can get away with far more racist speech and behaviour than is the norm in other western "democracies," but for being, by self-definition, a racist state.

Israel's Law of Return can be contrasted but not compared with the citizenship law of any other country in the world. No other country invites people from outside of its boundaries to come and live within those boundaries and enjoy more rights than the native population.

My next post will demonstrate the sheer hypocrisy of the zionists invoking the Nuremberg Laws to defend the Law of Return.

October 17, 2005

According to Ha'aretz, Afghanistan is considering diplomatic relations with Israel. Israel's foreign minister, Sylvan Shalom used a wonderful turn of phrase to describe Israel's attempts at diplomacy among Arab and Muslim regimes.

The Afghani report coincides with Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom's efforts to knock down the "iron wall" between Israel and Arab and Muslim countries. "Muslim countries understand this is the right time to initiate contact with Israel because anyone who wants to be involved in the peace process must have contact also with Israel and not only with the Palestinians," the Israeli sources said.

Just kidding! Of course Israel wouldn't kill Jewish stone throwers no matter how big the stones, no matter how big the throwers, no matter how big (or small) the target. Israel has been killing Palestinian stone throwing children for years now, even luring and provoking them into their stone throwing action before killing them, but never does Israel kill Jewish stone throwers. Clearly some stone throwers are more equal than others in the only democracy in the Middle East. Anyway, what's all this stone throwing about? According to Chris McGreal at the Guardian,

Scores of worshippers at Judaism's holiest site stoned a senior Israeli army officer as he arrived to pray, because of his leading role in removing settlers from the Gaza strip. A crowd surrounded Major General Elazar Stern, the head of the army's personnel division, as he approached the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem's old city with his young son on Friday.

When police officers moved to protect the general, worshippers began throwing stones, bags of water, and other objects at him; he emerged unharmed.

As did the stone throwers. If only Israel would treat all stone throwers that way.

In last week's New Statesman Nick Cohen wrote an article that stopped me and several of my colleagues in our tracks. In a piece about the rise of anti-semitism on the left he cited the unpleasant experience of "when the Guardian ran a web debate entitled: 'David Aaronovitch and Nick Cohen are enough to make a good man anti-semitic'".

Of course the impression one would get from this is that we orchestrated or commissioned such an offensive exchange. The fact is that it was a thread started not by us but by a user, which has now been deleted and which would have been deleted as soon as we had seen it, as it clearly breaches talk policy. In that sense it had nothing to do with GU or the Guardian, yet it had appeared on our website talkboards. This raises the difficult question of whether allowing users to do what they wish is damaging to our editorial brand and whether that is a strong enough reason to impose more draconian rules on our users.

In this case the writer, Emily Bell, has chosen to be far more kind to Nick Cohen, a colleague at the Guardian's sister paper, the Observer, than he chose to be to his colleagues at the Guardian.

In this case it was a simple misunderstanding and an issue of terminology.

Just when you thought it was safe to surf, Nick Cohen has a website. Ok, it's not exactly earth shattering news but it is styled as a blog complete with comments. The comments, at first, read like Little Green Footballs which is mostly an anti-Muslim anti-left hate site. Old Nick is pretty chuffed about those. But, thanks to Stephen Marks, I have alerted a few people who have taken issue with his ridiculous claim that "all anti-semites are anti-zionists."

October 15, 2005

The Israeli Supreme court recently ruled against the Israeli army's use of Palestinian civilians as human shields. The army is now, according to al-Jazeera, appealing against this ruling.

The Israeli High Court issued a ruling earlier this week barring the army from using Palestinian civilians as human shields, a practice used heavily in the West Bank, particularly since the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada or uprising in 2000.

On Tuesday, Israeli military sources said the army would press the High Court to reconsider the ruling on the ground that it would complicate "army activities" in the West Bank.

Apparently the human shield policy is for the Palestinians' own good.

The army has sought to downplay the gravity of the "human shield practice", describing it as a "generally innocuous early warning procedure"....

The occupation army has further argued that the practice actually saves (Jewish) lives and that banning it entirely would inflict more casualties on the Palestinians themselves as the army would be forced to bombard and destroy entire buildings where "wanted persons" are barricaded.

See how al-Jazeera has had to insert the "Jewish" in brackets before the "lives." To the Israeli army, lives are a Jewish thing. The saving of Palestinian "lives" comes in as an afterthought and a bogus one at that.

October 14, 2005

Here's a curious article on Finkelstein'sBeyond Chutzpah in zmag.org. Written by Neve Gordon, it wreaks as much havock on Alan Dershowitz's already savaged reputation as Finkelstein does.

Academically, the section discussing Israel's human rights record raises serious questions about intellectual honesty and the ideological bias of our cultural institutions, since it reveals how a prominent professor [Alan Dershowitz] holding an endowed chair at a leading university can publish a book whose major claims are false. The significant point is not simply that the claims cannot be corroborated by the facts on the ground -- anyone can make mistakes -- but that any first-year student who takes the time to read the human rights reports would quickly realize that though The Case for Israel has rhetorical style and structure, it is, for the most part, fiction passing as fact.

I do have some issues with the piece though. Take this:

While Finkelstein's basic claims are on the mark, he makes a couple of serious mistakes. First, the Israeli case in no way constitutes an unprecedented assault on international law. Not only has the Iraq war, which Finkelstein mentions, led to more egregious violations, particularly if one counts civilian deaths, but one could easily come up with a series of other recent assaults on international law that have produced much more horrific results. One only has to think of Chechnya, Rwanda, and Darfur.

There are many problems with this argument. First up, it is precisely over Iraq, not just Irael, not even Israel, that Finkelstein says that the bogus allegation of anti-semitism has been used against leftists. Regarding Chechnya, Rwanda and Darfur the comparison with anti-semitism may well be legitimate so why mention it in a book that argues that the allegations of, and comparisons with, anti-semitism are misapplied?

The other is this:

Finkelstein convincingly maintains that a connection has been drawn between Israel's illegal actions in the Occupied Territories and the new Anti-Semitism. This link has a dual character. On the one hand, the literature discussing the new anti-Semitism is used to fend off all criticism of Israel, while, on the other hand, Israel's violation of the occupied Palestinians' basic rights has generated anti-Semitism. I follow Finkelstein thus far, but he then proceeds to an odd and troubling conclusion: the Jews, Finkelstein implies, are also to blame for the rise of anti-Semitism.

This is unfair. He doesn't say that. Here's the crux of what he says:

In some quarters anger at Israel's brutal occupation has undoubtedly spilled over into an animus toward Jews generally. But however lamentable, it's hardly cause for wonder.

This quote is preceded by some stuff about Sarte's peculiar philo-semitic pamphlet "Anti-Semite and Jew" that Gordon alludes to but there is still not enough there to accuse Finkelstein of accusing Jews generally of responsibility for anti-semitism.

Anyway, the digs at Dershowitz make the article well worth a read but I can't help feeling that Neve Gordon misrepresents Finkestein and in so doing, possibly indverently appeases an "offical" Jewish establishment that must take some responsiblity for the anti-semitism that is evident today, marginal though it is.

While it becomes increasingly impossible to defend Israel's policies, a new front has been opened by propagandists, namely Israel is singled out for criticism because of ongoing anti-Semitism. Nick Cohen fails to see that a country he lauds as a democracy is all the more culpable of human rights abuses, precisely because the inhabitants of that country, through the ballot box, are able to make the choice to oppress another people. He says that there is a free press, so Israelis do not have even the consolation of saying "we never knew", as often happens under dictatorships.

It is indeed true that Israel is treated differently from other countries. It is allowed to occupy another people's land, confiscate their resources and build walls to imprison the population.

Diana NeslenIlford, Essex

To suggest that Hamas is at the centre of a multiheaded, anti-Semitic hydra is political paranoia. Israeli soldiers and settlers, with fists, boots and bullets, bulldoze the houses and crops of poor peasants, steal their water and land, kill their children and humiliate their elders, all in the name of the Jews. It is, after all, a Jewish state. Nick Cohen wonders why the illiterates of Hamas echo the absurdities of European anti-Semites? He muddles cause and effect and persists in looking down the telescope the wrong way.

Tony GreensteinSecretary, Jews Against Zionism, Brighton

This use of the anti-semitism smear has now been widened to cover not just criticism of Israel but also any criticism of American foreign policy. It's bizarre isn't it? These war party hacks are close to suggesting that imperialism is a Jewish thing.

October 13, 2005

Harold Pinter won the Nobel Prize for Literature today and so I was looking for stuff on him when I stumbled on his website. My favourite bit was when he wrote to the Guardian to rebut what Christopher Hitchens had said about him in the wake of 9/11. It's in a section headed "Misrepresentation in Media"

Dissenters put the record straightGuardian Friday September 28, 2001

In the last two months two assertions have been attributed to me by the Guardian. Both were serious and both were false. The first was "Milosevic is innocent - Pinter" (August 1). I had said no such thing. The second was by Christopher Hitchens (September 26), stating "that if one of the hijacked aircraft had crashed into the Capitol or White House, I would have found myself reading Pinter or Pilger on how my neighbourhood had been asking for it". I have said no such thing. Nor has John Pilger. The Guardian has apologised to "all concerned" in its Corrections column and explained that they were both "editing errors". I believe that the existence of such highly damaging "editing errors" at such a critical time should be more widely known, which is why I have written this letter.Harold Pinter

It gets better when Hitchens tries to distance himself from what he had written.

Having been informed that Harold Pinter had made an incautious statement in the wake of September 11, I included two disobliging references to him in my column. Discovering I had been wrongly apprised, I asked the relevant editor for the mentions of Harold to be removed. Only one was spotted and excised and so I have inadvertently done him an injustice. At a time like this, it is very important that there be no jeering or witch-hunting***, so I would be grateful if you would give this retraction the same prominence you gave my original remarks.Christopher HitchensWashington DC

October 11, 2005

AN orthodox Jewish synagogue in Stamford Hill has been attacked and vandalised - not by anti-semetic thugs, but by fellow Jews who regard its leaders' outspoken condemnation of Israel as a betrayal.

Rising tensions over the forced evictions by Israeli troops last month of Jewish settlers from occupied Palestinian territory as part of the Middle East peace process has sparked a backlash among Stamford Hill's orthodox Jewish community.

Windows at the synagogue in Alkham Road were smashed after bottles were hurled at them last Thursday evening and the front of the building was covered with red spray paint.

The synagogue belongs to Neturei Karta, an ultra-orthodox sect opposed to the Zionist political movement that established the state of Israel as a national homeland for Jews.

The sect claims that the concept of a sovereign Jewish state is contrary to the teachings of the torah (Jewish law) and has led to the bloodshed in the Middle East.

In recent years it has staged the public burning of the Israeli flag on street corners in Stamford Hill.

This isn't the first such incident by any means. Incidents like this contrast with the expressions of horror at the fact that Gaza's Palestinians destroyed synagogues as symbols of zionist oppression. They also belie the claim that Jews cannot destroy synagogues. But where was the Community Security Trust when it was needed?

October 10, 2005

I just had a comment setting out some books of interest to anti-zionists so here are some of them. I'm not necessarily recommending these but I would say they're worth a look at though I haven't read all of them.

Just about anything by Israel Shahak - That's not the name of a book. I have read one of them - Jewish History Jewish Religion - and you too can read it in full here. Sadly one of his books has a foreword by the leftist formerly known as Christopher Hitchens, I mean the Christopher Hitchens formerly known as a leftist.Lenni Brenner has produced some gems. I read his Jews in America Today back in the 1980s though it seems to have been updated since then and the copy I've linked is dated 2001. Also I can recommend Zionism in the Age of the Dictators which is a must read for details of nazi-zionist collaboration and it has some very useful footnotes. 51 Documents is very useful but it didn't do it for me as it shows (that's not to say it repeats because it doesn't) many of the documents alluded to in Zionism in the Age of the Dictators. One thing to highly recommend it though is the fact that one of the main British zionist groups, the Board of Deputies, tried to get Amazon to issue a health warning on it, saying that it was "dangerous and controversial. Well Lenni wasn't having that, because he hates to be "dangerous and controversial."

Last but not least for now is David Hirst whose most recent update of the Gun and the Olive Branch was in August 2003. I'm sure time hasn't withered it but it's still time for another I'd say.

Tell a lie - here's another that I really don't know anything about but the publishers sent me a shmoozy email. It's called Edges: O Israel, O Palestine and that's all I know of it.

Oops, and another. No list would be complete without The Myths of Zionism by John Rose even though the editor and the proof reader allowed Ber Borochov to slip through the net as Ben Borochov. Never mind, poet, raconteur and playright, Michael Rosen, found it a right riveting read.

October 09, 2005

Here is as ridiculous an article on anti-semitism as you will find anywhere on the internet. It was published recently in the New Statesman (dated 10/10/05) but it has already been re-published on various zionist blogs and I have posted it here.

It doesn't have a title as such. It's headed News Statesman Essay. followed by a bland assertion with no back up in what is (I warn you) a lengthy article:

'Anti-Semitism isn't a local side effect of a dirty war over a patch of land smaller than Wales. It's everywhere from Malaysia to Morocco, and it has arrived here'

It's interesting actually that Nick Cohen is saying here that anti-semitism isn't linked to the question of Palestine. The fact that he is trivialising the zionist project as being over "a patch of land smaller than Wales" shows what his motivation is for the article: to support the racist war criminals of Israel and their supporters in the media and various governments. But he seems not to have quite got the hang of the zionist campaign to try to, it seems, criminalise all criticism of Israel. For example, the Jewish Chronicle on Friday 7/10/2005 has the Chief Rabbi decrying the "new anti-semitism" as consisting of Attacks on Holocaust Memorial Day, the proposed academic boycott of Israel and the churches' discussions of divestment from Israel or companies that supply murder machinery to Israel. Smartly, the Chief Rabbi started on something of a more general Jewish interest than just zionism but no one can plausibly deny that the holocaust has been used to defend Israel from criticism. So we have three examples of the "new anti-semitism" and all three are bound up with, not the Jews generally, but zionism in particular.

It seems we are in the middle of an orchestrated campaign to smear the opponents of Israel so the zionists are running around telling everyone that anti-zionism is not necessarily anti-semitic but it can become anti-semitic if it is too vociferously expressed. If it is orchestrated then poor old Nick Cohen has been left out of the loop. He's gone back to the old chestnut that hostility to Israel is a product of the "oldest hatred" not the other way around.

If you read the article and have any critical faculty at all you will see that it is riddled with unsubstantiated bland assertions, non-sequiturs and downright falsehoods but I don't want to reproduce it here and debunk it line by line because I've read it twice and I've only just had my breakfast. Also I might have to repeat the exercise if I get round to writing to the New Statesman about this. Instead I want to look at arguably the stupidest thing he asserts in the article. Cop this:

As I'd had little contact with Jewish religion or culture, I'd rarely given anti-Semitism a thought. I suppose I'd assumed it had burned out in the furnaces of Auschwitz. When the subject came up, I dutifully repeated the liberal mantra that "not all anti-Zionists are anti-Semites" and forgot the corollary "but all anti-Semites are anti-Zionists".

Let's leave aside the fact that Nick Cohen feels that the only way he earn the trust of his readers by assuring them that he is not Jewish himself. This means that we can trust him just as we can trust, say, Conrad Black and whole ragbag of non-Jewish zionist smear merchants. Let's focus on the ridiculous whopper that "all anti-Semites are anti-Zionists."

I'm drawing heavily on Wikipedia here though some of their definitions are disputed. Theodor Herzl was not the first zionist by any means but he was the first leader of the zionist movement as we know it today. According to Wikipedia "Herzl did not foresee any conflict between Jews and Arabs." I'm not sure what is meant here but he definitely foresaw the ethnic cleansing of the Arabs from Palestine. He was the first leader of the World Zionist Organisation which was then, to oversimplify slightly, the Jewish state in waiting. whose aim it was to establish a state in Palestine for Jews, secured by "public law."

Anyway, Mr Herzl himself was more than a tad anti-semitic. Biographies of Herzl show that he was highly assimilated. At one point, he thought it a good idea to have all Jews converted to the Catholicism of his native Austria. He also seems to have believed that Dreyfus was guilty of treason against France and he clearly joined and led the zionist movement to stem the flow of Jewish immigrants into the west and divert it to the Middle East where he felt that Jews could make themselves useful to this or that great power. He also believed that one day western Jews would thank him for saving them from hordes of east European Jews. I'll return to this theme in a later post because with all the bogus allegations of anti-semitism doing the rounds these days, no one discusses zionist anti-semitism. So take it as read that Herzl was anti-semitic and trust me that I'll dig up some writings and sayings in due course.

I want to look at the various alliances that zionism has made with its kindred spirit.

To secure a land for Jews Herzl approached the Ottomans who controlled Palestine at that time. He invoked the anti-semitic notion of Jewish financial power bailing the sick-man empire out of its financial woes. But as Ben Gurion would later say, it wasn't just land that zionim required; it was Jews. To that end he approached the Tsar Nicolas II, or more accurately, his anti-semitic chief of the secret police and discussed ways of having Jews drop out of the Russian revolutionary movements (and indeed out of Russia altogether) and go to Palestine. Their meeting was as famous as any embarrassment to the zionists can be. That is not very famous at all except among anti-zionists and zionists who just won't tell. Theodor Herzl approached none other than Count Von Plehve, the author of the worst pogroms in Russia - the pogroms of Kishinev with the following proposition:

"Help me to reach the land [Palestine] sooner and the revolt [against Czarist rule] will end." Von Plehve agreed, and he undertook to finance the Zionist movement. He was later to complain to Herzl: "The Jews have been joining the revolutionary parties. We were sympathetic to your Zionist movement as long as it worked toward emigration. You don’t have to justify the movement to me. You are preaching to a convert." Herzl and Weizmann offered to help guarantee Czarist interests in Palestine and to rid Eastern Europe and Russia of those "noxious and subversive Anarcho-Bolshevik Jews".

As an aside here, John Rose demonstrates in the Myths of Zionism how the new cadre of battle hardened Jews after the failed Russian insurrection of 1905 were crucial in establishing the backbone of the zionist militia in Palestine. so from the zionist perspective this alliance with anti-semitism proved to be very fruitful indeed.

Speaking of 1905, that was the year when Britain's Arthur (later Lord) Balfour pushed through the Aliens Act. This act was aimed specifically at restricting the numbers of Jews fleeing persecution in Europe. As Lord Balfour the promoter of this anti-semitic measure would issue the notorious declaration pledging British support for the zionist project. Whilst I don't agree with all of his reasoning, significantly, the only dissenter over the adoption of the Balfour Delaration as British foreign policy on the British cabinet of the time was the only Jewish minister: Edwin Samuel Montagu

When the Jews are told that Palestine is their national home, every country will immediately desire to get rid of its Jewish citizens, and you will find a population in Palestine driving out its present inhabitants, taking all the best in the country, drawn from all quarters of the globe, speaking every language on the face of the earth, and incapable of communicating with one another except by means of an interpreter.

Clearly he failed to recognise, arguably, zionism's only impressive achievement: the reconstruction of Hebrew as an everyday working language.

The Balfour Declaration came in the wake of the Russian revolution so just as zionism had lost an anti-semitic benefactor it gained another.

Even after Israel was established the collaboration of zionists with anti-semites continued. Here's Israel Shahak's take, worth quoting at length

In fact, close relations have always existed between Zionists and antisemites: exactly like some of the European conservatives, the Zionists thought they could ignore the 'demonic' character of antisemitism and use the antisemites for their own purposes. Many examples of such alliances are well known. Herzl allied himself with the notorious Count von Plehve, the antisemitic minister of Tsar Nicholas II; Jabotinsky made a pact with Petlyura, the reactionary Ukrainian leader whose forces massacred some 100,000 Jews in 1918-21; Ben-Gurion's allies among the French extreme right during the Algerian war included some notorious antisemites who were, however, careful to explain that they were only against the Jews in France, not in Israel.

Perhaps the most shocking example of this type is the delight with which some Zionist leaders in Germany welcomed Hitler's rise to power, because they shared his belief in the primacy of 'race' and his hostility to the assimilation of Jews among 'Aryans'. They congratulated Hitler on his triumph over the common enemy - the forces of liberalism. Dr Joachim Prinz, a Zionist rabbi who subsequently emigrated to the USA, where he rose to be vice-chairman of the World Jewish Congress and a leading light in the World Zionist Organization (as well as a great friend of Golda Meir), published in 1934 a special book, Wir Juden (We, Jews), to celebrate Hitler's so- called German Revolution and the defeat of liberalism:

The meaning of the German Revolution for the German nation will eventually be clear to those who have created it and formed its image. Its meaning for us must be set forth here: the fortunes of liberalism are lost. The only form of political life which has helped Jewish assimilation is sunk.

The victory of Nazism rules out assimilation and mixed marriages as an option for Jews. 'We are not unhappy about this,' said Dr Prinz. In the fact that Jews are being forced to identify them- selves as Jews, he sees 'the fulfillment of our desires'. And further:

We want assimilation to be replaced by a new law: the declaration of belonging to the Jewish nation and Jewish race. A state built upon the principle of the purity of nation and race can only honored and respected by a Jew who declares his belonging to his own kind. Having so declared himself, he will never be capable of faulty loyalty towards a state. The state cannot want other Jews but such as declare themselves as belonging to their nation. It will not want Jewish flatterers and crawlers. It must demand of us faith and loyalty to our own interest. For only he who honors his own breed and his own blood can have an attitude of honor towards the national will of other nations.

The whole book is full of similar crude flatteries of Nazi ideology, glee at the defeat of liberalism and particularly of the ideas of the French Revolution and great expectations that, in the congenial atmosphere of the myth of the Aryan race, Zionism and the myth of the Jewish race will also thrive.

Of course, Dr Prinz, like many other early sympathizers and allies of Nazism, did not realize where that movement (and modern antisemitism generally) was leading. Equally, many people at present do not realize where zionism - the movement in which Dr Prinz was an honored figure - is tending: to a combination of all the old hates of classical Judaism towards Gentiles and to the indiscriminate and ahistorical use of all the persecutions of Jews throughout history in order to justify the zionist persecution of the Palestinians.

For, insane as it sounds, it is nevertheless plain upon close examination of the real motives of the zionists, that one of the most deep-seated ideological sources of the Zionist establishment's persistent hostility towards the Palestinians is the fact that they are identified in the minds of many east-European Jews with the rebellious east-European peasants who participated in the Chmielnicki uprising and in similar revolts - and the latter are in turn identified ahistorically with modern antisemitism and Nazism.

I've been running all over the internet for evidence of this confluence of zionist and nazi aims, ie anti-semitic zionism and zionist anti-semitism, and there it was all along in Israel Shahak's Jewish History Jewish Religion. Read it in full here. It has all the evidence you need to show that Nick Cohen's article is an exercise in shmockery. To recap, he said that not all anti-zionists are anti-semitic but all anti-semites and anti-zionists. I hope that I have demonstrated here that many anti-semites have been fervent zionists, to paraphrase Eichman, the most fanatical zionists imaginable. And clearly, some, indeed many, zionists can be anti-semites. As a rule one should challenge all statements made by zionists. They very rarely stand passing, let alone close, scrutiny.

October 05, 2005

Here's an article by Chris McGreal in yesterday's Guardian. Because of its plum location, the Israeli army occupied the house of Gazan, Khalil Bashir and his family. Explaining the occupation thus:

The army designated the living room as "Area A", after the part of the occupied territories where the Palestinians have control, and told all three generations of the Bashirs, from 81-year-old Zanah to her five-year-old granddaughter, that they were confined there for most nights and sometimes for much of the day. It was the only part of the house they could still call their own.

The bathroom, kitchen and bedrooms were "Area B", where Palestinians administer themselves but Israel has security control. In the Bashir home that meant soldiers had priority and the family had to ask permission to cook or go to the toilet.

And then came "Area C", where the Israeli military government runs everything and the Palestinians have no authority. The soldiers warned the Bashirs that all of their home above the ground floor was Area C and if they ventured up the stairs they would be shot.

Still, Mr Bashir took it on the chin.

The day the soldiers moved in to Mr Bashir's house he vowed that no matter what they threw at him, he would not hate; his energies would go into trying to understand and, in his words, love the Israelis. Mr Bashir, a headmaster, began by leading hundreds of his pupils in a chant for peace each morning.

Life was no bed of roses with a house literally militarily occupied:

There has been much to test Mr Bashir's resolve over the past five years. The military tried to prise the family out of the house. It made a wasteland of the greenhouses and fruit orchards, including 170 palm trees, that provided their relative wealth. Soldiers wounded Mr Bashir with a mortar and shot and injured two of his sons, leaving one with a bullet lodged next to his spine and in danger of paralysis. They also killed the family donkey.

But not wishing to go the way of the Palestinian refugees, still Mr Bashir hung in there.

At first he thought that being confined with the soldiers would provide an opportunity to break down the suspicion and persuade them that there were Palestinians who believed in peace and coexistence. But he found them unwilling to listen, or under orders not to. "They behaved professionally but they didn't leave room for human contact. Their orders were not to be friendly with us," he said. Mr Bashir was regularly forced to strip to his underwear on his own doorstep before entering the house, often in front of his children.....

All the time, Mr Bashir preached understanding - even when it generated the suspicion of armed groups such as Hamas. Then last year a soldier on Mr Bashir's roof shot his 15-year-old son, Yusuf, as the pair waved goodbye to a United Nations team that had come to check on their welfare.

And did his peace overtures work? Not quite.

Last month, after the soldiers hauled off the machine guns and finally drove away, Mr Bashir ventured up the stairs of his home for the first time in five years. What he found was a relatively small thing compared with the shootings of his sons and the destruction of his orchards, but it left him flummoxed for the first time since the soldiers arrived: placed around the walls were the Bashirs' cooking pots, each with a pile of human excrement in the bottom.

"The moralistic army used our cooking pots as lavatories," Mr Bashir said. "They dominate my bathroom and they use the toilet all the time. So why did they behave in this way? They used our cooking pots and they left them behind deliberately. They gathered everything, even empty bottles, sandbags and took it with them. But they left this as a souvenir."

Mr Bashir grappled to understand and reluctantly concluded that it could only be explained as a deliberate and provocative mocking of everything the soldiers knew he stood for.

October 04, 2005

Reports in both the Guardian and the Independent say that the BBC is appointing yet another zionism tsar to appease Israel. The last one was last year. Malcolm Balen was the Beeb's last zionism tsar. Installed as a result of zionist lobbying, Balen reported in secret to the BBC high-ups on the Beeb's coverage of Palestine. I'm guessing that he advised the Beeb on how to avoid upsetting the Israelis. This is a toug assignment. Just an example, when the reports came in from Israel Army Radio that there were "hundreds of fatalities" in Jenin in 2002, the BBC picked up on the Israeli reports and repeated them. It turned out that the number killed was fifty-something. Ergo, the BBC is anti-semitic for taking its cue from Israel. Amid all the allegations against the BBC, it hasn't defended itself, it has simply pandered to the zionists. I doubt if this latest episode will herald a more even stance on the part of the Beeb towards the question of Palestine.

Yunus Yakoub Islam aka the Anarchist Muslim, or was it Muslim Anarchist? It's one of those. Anyway, he's set up a new blog - Muslims against Mumbo Jumbo - specially to debunk the absurd conspiracy theories doing the rounds about Jewish responsibility for all manner of disasters from 9/11 to the tsunami. Personally I don't see much need for this but then Yakoub is concerned that some of the conspiracy theories are both offensive and harmeful to any cause associated with Muslims and Arabs; certainly, he feels, they undermine legitimate, that is most, criticism of Israel. The way I see it is that the zionists actively want anti-semitism. There are clearly some people who feel that zionism cannot be defeated and so they like to say things that are offensive to Jews since, if they can't defeat zionism they can at least make zionists feel bad about themselves. This betrays a complete lack of understanding of what zionism is all about. It's true that zionism came into being as a response to anti-semitism but it has long since been a reaction to the assimilation of Jews and so zionism wants anti-semitism and where it can't find it, it invents it. In this sense anti-semitism is the enemy, not of the zionists but of the Arab and Muslim communities.

Anyway, let's have a look at some of Yakoub's instances of anti-Jewish conspiracy theories around 9/11. I am simply using Yakoub's headings and then googling them.

Blaming the Mossad.

Punching "Blaming the Mossad" 9/11, into google we find 296 sites all of which claim that this rumour is doing the rounds. Googling Mossad 9/11 we draw 304,000 sites, many of which do accuse the Mossad of responsibility for 9/11 but few that you could call credible. The most plausible story is that the Mossad knew what was happening and did nothing to alert the US.

"Israeli Art Student" Spy Ring

Is this so bizarre? The fact that Israel spies on America is well known. One spy for Israel, Jonathan Pollard, is serving time in America for his espionage. Also, some AIPAC seniors are currently under investigation for spying on America. I can't find anything weird about this story.

"Jewish Ownership" of the World Trade Center

This one clearly relies on an anti-Jewish stereotype involving insurance fraud on a near unthinkable scale but I can find no sites on this. True, googling whole sentences can yield imprecise results but where are these theories?

Four Thousand Israelis Told to Stay Home

Punch that statement into google and it yields 3 sites only. [update] A zionist has suggested that I was being deliberately dishonest in framing the search in the way that I did so I should point out that googling different but similar words and different permutations of words will yield different results - OBVIOUSLY!

I know many Muslims and many Jews and the only people who have said anything to me about these silly theories, where indeed they are silly, have been zionists. I have only read of them in the Jewish Chronicle. In fact, a couple of years ago a guy in the JC wrote of how he was sitting in an amusement arcade and a man "of Middle Eastern appearance" (not an Israeli then) came and sat beside him. He began to speak about 9/11, as people "of Middle Eastern appearance" do, and told the JC guy of how 4,000 Israeli stayed at home. In fairness I remember Abu Hamza saying on TV that the planes that were flown into the WTC were unmanned and when asked who he thought was responsible for 9/11 he said something like "who is the lobby who has most to gain etc?" But widespread? I'd say not. Worth devoting a new blog to? Maybe. It could be fun and it could direct people of goodwill to use their time more fruitfully than wasting it on silly stories that only serve to cheer the zionists and demoralise their victims. So check out the site - Muslims against Mumbo Jumbo - and try to find the origin of the stories. You might just find that conspiracy theories are themselves a conspiracy, but that's just my theory.